Iceberg

Quique Dacosta created dishes with very different ideas and procedures in 2008–the white truffle (sugar crust powdered with pulverized mushrooms that take the shape of a truffle stuffed with Parmigiano-reggiano), “Springtime” (a vase of flowers over the plate), “Mist” (a televised show in pure Blumenthal style where importance is given to the visual aspect and arrangement of the mushrooms, vegetables, nuts, earth… the newest and most brilliant Gargouillou), foie gras with wood crust (intrinsically and technically perfect, adorned and texturized with bulbs). A masterful idea and a profiled style find their most brilliant moment with shellfish. Product, 10, fantasy, 10, aesthetics, 10, in the ‘essential oyster’ (oysterleaf on top of codium jelly and julienned wakame, followed by an uncommon Gillardeau oyster with a jelly made from its water, a light silver-plating and a hint of smoke from a seaweed tea), or the ‘corals’, which will find its way onto the menu in 2009 (crab, urchin, roe from various shellfish and fish, spheres and crispy codium), or the ‘Rock’ or ‘Iceberg’. Arguably they all deserve the honor of Dish of the Year. To avoid repetition we have chosen the final two.
It is possible that the ‘Rock’ gives the guest greater pleasure, more robust, as the barnacles and seaweed drench the palate in delicacy. It is also possible that the ‘Iceberg’ has more talent: velvet swimming crab, a jelly made from the same crustacean, bitter almonds, ficoide glaciale, brushstrokes of thickened ajoblanco and a frozen snow made from the same chilled soup. Judge for yourself…